Building houses and crap



I recently received an email from a friend of mine that caught my eye. I will try my best to translate it accurately.

When a Saudi citizen wishes that a month is 29 days

Saturday: a little girl in the 3rd grade asks her father to buy some chocolates for a school party, and his wife asks him to fix the washing machine that’s been broken for 2 months

Sunday: a landlord asks his tenant to pay the rent of 7000 riyals that’s already 6 months late.

Monday: Oil prices reach $100 per barrel and is rumored to go higher

Tuesday: a girl in a city called Ar’ar that lives in a box of a house dies from severe cold.

Wednesday: a wife asks her husband to buy her a fancy dress to attend her sister’s wedding when the husband doesn’t even have 150 riyals to fix his car that’s been broken down for more than a week.

Thursday: Kids kiss the head of their father begging him to take them to Mcdonald’s where their nephews usually go for lunch when the fridge at home hasn’t had any meat in it for 2 months.

Friday: a family having dinner on the ground where their “sufra” is just bunch of news paper, eating nothing more than half a chicken and some rice while the news reporter says that oil prices reach $110.

Saturday: a young student at school waits in the corner, collecting the leftovers of other students sandwiches.

Sunday: a college graduate who’s green folder has been sitting on the passenger side of his car for a year looking for a job that pays 5000 riyals per month.

Monday: a citizen cries for help in a mosque for others to give him charity to pay his 300 riyal electricity bill

Tuesday: saudi Arabia finished building 2700 out of 4000 houses for the poor in Pakistan

Wednesday: A horrible accident on the coastal roads leads to the death of 5 female teachers and the driver.

Thursday: a citizen begs the pharmacist to give him the baby milk formula for the old price of 29 riyals when the pharmacist insists it is now 35 riyals.

Friday: flour crisis hits the kingdom. A bag of flour costs 75 riyals and half the bakeries close down.

Saturday: A citizen takes his son to a public hospital for an urgent X-ray and they tell him to come back in 3 months.

Sunday: A landlord increases rent by 25% and forces the tenants to leave if they can’t pay.

Monday: a metric ton of steel costs 4000 riyals, and every Saudis dream of building a house has been crushed.

Tuesday: a wife asks her husband when they’re gonna build a house of the land they’ve owned for 10 years now.

Wednesday: Egg prices reach 18 riyals per trey (30 eggs), and some school cafeterias can’t afford to provide food.

Thursday: oil reaches an all time high of $120 per barrel

Friday: 1 kilo of tomatoes is 10 riyals, and 10 kilos of rice goes for 63 riyals

Saturday: today’s is the 21st of the month, and every employee goes to his friend to borrow 200 riyals.

Sunday: an employee rides a taxi to work hearing on the radio that someone paid 6 million riyals in an auction for a “special” car license plate

Monday: a young man delays his wedding plans due to high cost

Tuesday: Qatar and Kuwait allow femal saudi teachers to work in their countries.

Wednesday: a metric ton of steel goes for 6500 riyals and the production can’t cover local demand. On the other hand, trucks are seen shipping steel to neighboring countries, and SABIC’s CEO “lies” and says that he had to put building his house on hold due to not having enough steel.

Thursday: Saudi Arabia sends half a billion dollars to aid world hunger

Friday: oil prices are over $133 per barrel.

Saturday: today is the 29th of the month

Sunday: today is the end of the month, and as expected, the news headlines reads:
Saudi Arabia sends 500 million dollars to Morocco to help them cope with the rise in oil prices!




Most of this email is just plain lies. There are families who don’t have enough money to eat, but I won’t comment on that. Some of them are genuinely poor… with 12 kids. You know my views on that… some of them aren’t poor, but they don’t know how to manage their money, and the father spends 90% of the income on booze.
As for the college graduate who can’t find a job… Personally, I have never seen a college graduate who couldn’t find a job in this country, even if his major was Chemistry… the main problem is that some of the jobs low blow you on the salary. 4500 riyals for a college graduate is becoming the norm in most small time private companies. But to Saudis, they’d rather stay home, unemployed and get nothing, than working for 4500 riyals. They want to start out making 15,000 riyals as a supervisor, or else they won’t work. I have heard many stories about “I can’t find a job… I’ve tried… no one wants to hire me”… and when you ask their friends or relatives they say “he’s a retard, he had offers of 7000 riyals to work in another city, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to work for double that salary in an office that’s 5 minutes away from home”.

Now to the main issue I want to talk about here…. Building a house. In our culture, life consists of 3 phases:
1- get married
2- have as many children as you can within 5 years of marriage
3- build a house that you can’t afford

Due to natural disasters that happen on a regular basis her in Saudi, like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis… etc. Our houses have to be made out of concrete and steel. And I don’t know what it is about 1000 square meters or more, but I think if you buy a land any smaller than that, you’d go to hell.
With all the prices shooting up, you’d think we’d find alternatives to building these “bunkers” we call houses. But, no. we aren’t even looking. Ok, if you insist on building this cube that will protect you from weapons of mass destruction, why not build something small? Something you can afford?! NOOOO!!! Buying a 500 sq. meter land and building a bullet proof house on it will cost me 1.2-1.8 million riyals!! If I’m gonna spend that kind of money, I’d rather spend 3-4 million buying a 1200 sq. meter piece of land and build a bigger house!
And everyone tells you that if you get a loan from the bank, buy a piece of land and build a house starting today (at the age of 25-29) you will win on the long run. Yes, you will… If the only thing you have to pay for in life is your house. These people have no regard to other aspects of life. “you are paying 30,000 riyals per year as your rent! If you buy a house, you won’t have to pay rent, you just have to pay off your loan from the bank, and when you’re done, you own the house!! Yeah, you’ll pay off the debt in about 30-40 years… but, you will have to pay more than your current rent (about 50% more), and you won’t have money left to buy a new car, buy a car for your kid, pay for your kids private school fees, pay for his college tuition, travel… etc.
Most people who do this, and lead wonderful lives, and it doesn’t effect their daily life expenses… etc… are the same people who say “baba… I want a new BMW 745… the one I bought last month sucks… the color doesn’t match my eyes”…
Look at the majority… people always try to explain it as if it’s a perfect idea to take out a loan and buy a house at a young age… fact of the matter is… look at the vast majority… in debt and fucked up. Most people have a very hefty pay check, don’t even pay rent because they live with their parents, and manage to blow every last dime they have by the 20th day of the month. Look at the old guys (45+) who saved up a lot of money to buy their dream house… look at them now… go out and have a cigarette… how the hell does he look? Always looking down, pale, with his hand on his forehead… ask him what’s wrong?... “this fucking house… I’m gonna die from all the stress and from how much this shit is costing me… why does it have to be this way?”… and this is a man that didn’t take out a loan, saved up a mil or two and is building it from his own funds while getting paid nicely at the end of each month…
Get someone who has a fucked up pay check, takes out a loan from the bank, still has to pay rent because the house needs 2-3 years to be ready, and tell me he’s doing the right thing!... “yeah, but when it’s done, and he paid his debt, it’ll be his and he can do anything he wants with his money then!”…. “then” is too late. He will be 65-70 years old (if he doesn’t die and pass down his debt to his children), and his children would’ve never seen any “entertainment” in their lives.
You have to look at the big picture. To me? Well, I say save up your money, save up for your pension… when you retire, build a house with your own money… because when you retire, your kids will probably be employed at that time (if you aren’t the kind of person who wants 18 kids, and by the time you’re 60, you still have a 2 year old to take care of), some of them will be out of the house even, you can help out your sons or daughters if they are married and they want to live close by (if that’s what they want), you can build a small duplex or whatever… etc.
If you reach that age, and you haven’t saved up enough money to do any of this… you should thank god that you didn’t take out a loan from the bank and built a house… because if you can’t save up enough money after working a good job for 40 years, you won’t be able to pay off a house in 60 years.

Point is… don’t listen to people who don’t know what money is… you know “baba, pay for my vacation in London, and buy me a new car”… have a nice little talk with your self and work it out on paper first if this is what you want to do.
Besides, Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it as dumb as shit to buy a house or buy land and build a house when real estate and building materials are at an all time high?



Just another thing I want to talk about… again

The guy who delayed his marriage because of high prices… let me tell you something… if you don’t come from a rich family whose soul purpose in marriage is “my marriage was more expensive than yours!!! Na nana na naaaa naaa!!!... what? Who did I marry??? I don’t know… some relative… but the marriage is still better than what you had!!”… you don’t need to spend more than 30,000 riyals for EVERYTHING!!! And I mean everything. If you want a big fancy wedding, and you want to pay 100,000 riyals as a dowry… it’s up to you… but if you can’t afford it… you’re a fucking retard. If the girl insists that that’s what she wants… go find another girl, cuz this one obviously wants a wedding people would talk about, and not a husband who people will talk about.

You don’t have to make the wedding in a fancy hotel that costs 70,000 riyals for a one night booking. Let me tell you, 75% of the people who go are like “shit, I have to go to another wedding… I hope the food’s worth it.”… the best wedding I’ve ever been to (best is relative)… was in a wedding hall that costs 100-120K per night… and by best I mean “wow… nice chandeliers… where the fuck is the groom so I can shake his hand and get the fuck outta here”… to the groom and his family, it didn’t make a difference, because they were rich. But I know people who aren’t, who actually took a loan out from the bank to book the same place… 8 years later… they’re still paying off the loan.

It’s not stupid if you can drop down 200,000 riyals on a wedding and shit and it won’t make a difference in your 8 digit bank account… but if you only have 4 digits in your bank account and you want to pull off that kind of a wedding because you’re afraid of “what will people say???”… you are the ultimate retard.

Let me tell you something, and I say this from the heart. People don’t give a rat’s ass about you. If you were in trouble, they won’t help (a few, yes… majority, they’ll avoid you). No one ever likes a guy in debt who always asks for help… you can’t afford it, don’t do it. plain and simple. If you loved the girl so much and she loved you and all that… she wouldn’t be asking for this shit. But let’s face it… girls demand this because most women in Saudi Arabia don’t look for a “man!” … they look for something they never had… a big fancy wedding and being the center of attention.